I’ve finally seen it; the biggest blockbuster of all time and I just saw it last night. No it wasn’t in 3d and no it wasn’t on a movie theatre. Heck it wasn’t even on a big LCD tv either. Humble me watched James Cameron’s Avatar on my 15.6 in screen of my Lenovo G550 laptop. And if I was this blown away watching it here, I can only imagine what it must be like watching in a giant screen with the lights dimmed!

Awesome experience of movie making at the very best. A fantastic imaginary world created by Cameron to boggle your mind and yeah the ordinary human brain cannot fathom the extensive research, creative process, brain storming, craftsmanship & fantasy that went into making this film. It’s Sci-fi for the ages and dare I say it, it’s like the Star Wars gone bonkers on acid, mushrooms & the finest of weed! This totally rocks!

The story is simplistic at best, a formula that has been around for decades. It’s almost Dances With Wolves with aliens instead of Native Americans. Paraplegic soldier is chosen to operate the human/Na’vi hybrid avatar in an effort to learn the ways & gain the trust of the natives of Pandora, a moon in the Alpha Centuri star system. Greedy humans want to mine the rich & valuable mineral which is on the sacred homeland of these natives. Soldier gets into the group and gains the trust of the Na’vi after learning their ways and also gets the love of the girl who shows him the land. Greedy humans close in on the natives and through brute force & technologically advanced weapons scatter the tribe from one holy land. Soldier gives rousing speech and helps natives to defeat the humans and they are chased away. He gets the girl, becomes one with the natives and all ends well. Sounds familiar? Insert human instead of ‘white man’.

Still it’s a stunning visual feast and we are all indebted to Jimmy boy for creating this master piece. Here is a few thoughts on the movie:

• The Na’vi look, sound & behave like a hybrid of Native American (North+South) tribes & African tribesmen.
• Avatar is an English word derived from the Sanskrit ‘avaatar’ which means incarnation of, usually a Hindu deity. Like Vishnu’s avaatars of Krishna & Rama. Is that why the Na’vi are blue skinned?
• The movie  is set in the year 2154, which is only 3 years from when the year of the first Starfleet deep space mission using the first starship to be called Enterprise from the Star Trek legend (which starts off in the year 2151). Apparently Cameron’s future of humanity is much less hospitable and still obsessed with wealth & gaining power when compared to the Star Trek legacy.
• I though Giovanni Ribisi was miscast as the secondary antagonist in the film, a corporate administrator.
• Stephen Lang as the villainous Colonel Quartich – man that guy looks so cartoonish; for a few minutes I thought that he was CGI as well!
• Cool to see Sigourney Weaver in her supporting role; the helicopters, ships and equipments remind me of the Alien movie franchise of which she was a huge part.
• Na’vi women are hot, even if 10 feet tall.
• The wildlife and plant life shown on Pandora is fucking awesome. Outta this world….which is what it is supposed to be!

Outta 10 I give this movie  99!

These are the top 11 movies, made before I was born, that I like off the top of my head

• Forbidden Planet
• Planet Of The Apes
• The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
• Dirty Harry
• The Time Machine
• M*A*S*H
• Sound Of Music
• The Brothers Karamozov
• The man Who Would Be King
• You Only Live Twice
• The Daring Dobbermanns

I knew nothing about this  movie other than the fact that Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor were cast in it. That is the full extent of my knowledge about this movie but since it stars Jim Carrey, I took a copy of this film from a friend today morning. It’s a delightfully acted and well scripted and fast paced film in which both Carrey & McGregor shines. Jim Carrey has always been a huge favourite of mine and I think this should win him even more fans.

I Love You Philip Morris is based on the real life events of ex-cop, conman, impostor and multiple prison escapee Steven Russell, played by Carrey. Russell’s childhood is marred when he is told that he is infact adopted and he tried to find his biological mother as he grows up but is rejected. He is married to the religious & upright Debbie (Leslie Mann) and is a dotting father to his little daughter. But he is infact gay and a car crash & near death situation makes him decide to live his own life, as that of a gay man. He finds a boyfriend and moves to Florida and showers his new lover with expensive gifts and lives a lavish lifestyle, soon fueled by the money he makes by conning. He gets caught and is  sent to prison.

Over there he meets and falls in love with the shy and gentle Philip Morris (Ewan McGregor) and after sharing letters for a while, Steven manages to get himself transferred to the same cell as Philip. They soon become lovers and have s torrid love affair. Once Steven is released he gets Philip out early by forging documents, faking voices on the phone, and maintaining a series of inspired bluffs including pretending to be a lawyer. He then makes a life with Philip, constructing a massive, fraudulent career in both law and finance so that they can live together in luxury as a super-rich gay couple. However he is caught while bluffing his way through the post of a company’s CFO and making huge amounts of cash on false profits. He is caught again and this time Philip leaves him as he is tired of the lies and shame.

Steven will go through any length to see Philip, escaping from prison a few times like pretending to be a doctor and painting his clothes, impersonating a lawyer and forging a judge’s signature on release forms. His love for Philips is the desire that fuels him and his biggest ingenious plan is faking his own death by pretending to have AIDS  and then meets Philip in prison pretending to be his lawyer. Until finally they are both caught and put in separate prisons. Philip is released in 2006 but Steven is given a life sentence and is still behind bars. The ending of the movie shows a laughing Jim Carrey running away from guards trying to make yet another escape – his persistence is amazing & incredible.

You may, like me, be put off by the gay sex scenes. I can’t imagine these two actors kissing and stimulating sex with another man while actually being straight but that’s professionalism for ya. It is a great movie with some tremendous acting skills shown.

Veteran film & tv character actor Maury Chaykin passed away on July 27th, 2010. Born in the US he later moved to Canada and was known for portrayals of blustery supporting characters and the occasional lead, as in the character Nero Wolfe in the tv films or in Whale Music. The former role lead to a two year series in A Nero Wolfe Mystery. He was also the Mahoney in Owning Mahoney.

Maury Chaykin (July 27, 1949 – July 27, 2010)

• The Net
• The Proposal
• Speed
• While You Were Sleeping
• Miss Congeniality
• Murder By Numbers
• Practical Magic
• Demolition Man
• A Time To Kill
• The Lake House
• Hop Floats

Very cool looking and exciting trailer for the new Predators movie considered a sequel to the Predator & Predator 2 films.

I first heard about this movie when I saw a interview of the main stars on The Hour with George Stroumbolopolous.  And I heard them talking about the Rush angle to this movie. That was more than enough to peak my interest in this movie. Plus I really like the two lead actors – Paul Rudd and Jason Segel. Rashida Jones, daughter of Quincy Jones, also stars as Rudd’s fiance and Jamie Pressely, Jane Curtin & Jon Favereau also lend a supporting hand in this movie.

Peter Klaven (Rudd) just got engaged to his girlfriend of 8 months, Zooey Rice but he is embarrassed by the fact that he has a lack of male friends, especially compared with the close intimate relationships that Zooey has with her group of female friends. Overhearing her friends discussing this oddity, Peter goes on a series of “man dates” with men hoping to get a real friend in time for his wedding. However, he always seems to be ending up in awful situations. Feeling rejected, Peter is about to give up, when during an open house at Lou Ferrigno’s mansion, he meets Sydney Fife (Jason Segel) . The two hit it off very well, despite having different personalities. Later, Peter calls Sydney, and they go out for drinks.

Pretty soon they are spending a lot of time together, including jamming on bass & guitar in Sydney’s garage turned ‘man cave’. They also bond over a mutual love for the rock band Rush – the two of them singing Tom Sawyer in the garage is a highlight of the film! Peter then asks Sydney to be his best man at his wedding and invites him to a dinner with family & friends – where Sydney makes a totally inappropriate toast! Things get a little testy when Sydney borrows $8000 from Peter and puts billboards all over Los Angeles to advertise Peter’s real estate skills. And then Sydney fights with Ferrigno which seems to jeopardize the sale. They break off their friendship for a while.

However, it seems that Sydney’s silly billboards have worked in getting more business for Peter including Ferrigno, who is impressed with the sales technique. Zooey who has second thoughts about their friendship, relents when she sees that Peter is upset on the day of their wedding and she invites Sydney to come. The two friends are reunited and the wedding takes place.

Total dude movie; watch it and you’ll love it.

I had kinda given up hope on Manoj Shyamalan’s movies getting the same kinda acclaim as Sixth Sense and Signs did. I liked The Village a lot more than most people did and have yet to watch Lady In The Water & Unbreakable. This movie is similar to the kind of movie that you would expect Shyamalan to make. Although I am surprised by the casting – Zooey Deschanel is not the kind of actress I would have expected in this role and neither was John Leguizamo in his small supporting role. I don’t like Mark Wahlberg but I guess he did ok in this role.

The Happening is about an unexplainable natural disaster that occurs on the East Coast of the US. It starts off in Central Park, New York when people suddenly start to commit suicide in the most accessible manner possible for no apparent reason. Stabbing themselves in the neck by a pen, walking off construction sites, policemen shooting themselves with their own guns etc.

Initially believed to be a bioterrorist attack using an airborne neurotoxin, the epidemic quickly spreads across the northeastern United States, slowly moving from large population centers to smaller and smaller areas. The disease is spread through the air and the onset is depicted by the wind picking up. Wahlberg plays Elliot, a high school teacher, who tries to escape the epidemic with his wife Alma (Deschanel), his friend Jullian (Luguizamo) and Jullian’s young daughter Jess. Jullian dies when he goes back to search for his wife and is infected along with others that he is traveling with. Elliot & Alma take Jess with them as they try to make their way to smaller and more open areas with less people as they get the idea that this infections occurs where there are more people. They are joined by a group of people who soon split into smaller groups as the wind picks up and they start to get infected.

Towards the end, Elliot is left with just Alma & Jess and they take refuge in an old isolated farm house occupied by a paranoid oddball woman, who is unaware of the disaster as she keeps to herself and has shunned technology and interaction with other humans. Soon, however she too is infected and she kills herself by banging her head onto the windows of her house. Elliot, Jess & Alma hide out in different parts of her house until they feel that death is inevitable and they come out to embrace in the field. The wind picks up and the trio wait for the onset of the epidemic…but nothing happens!

As predicted by scientists in the beginning the outbreak abates as quickly as it has started lasting only a couple of days. 3 months later things are normal for Alma & Elliot who have adopted Jess and are also expecting their first child. The Northeast is almost back to normal, save for the deaths and some destruction of property. However, a scientist is shown talking on  tv that this was probably just the signs of a bigger wave of the epidemic, saying that humans have been a threat to the planet and nature is fighting back. We are then shown the same epidemic strike in France as the movie ends.

I’ve known that I wanna watch this movie the first time I read about the subject matter. My interest was even more piqued when I came to know that Paranormal Activity was rated to be  quite scary and gained my admiration when I came to find out that although made on a budget of $15,000, this Orel Peli directed film has made over $192 million worldwide! That is an amazing statistic.

A few points about this movie: I don’t think any Hollywood ace director used to making big budget box office smashes could have done a better job. Trust me on this; it’s a bang up job with a shoe string budget. Choosing the right cast is extremely critical as they are trying to sell it (atleast initially) that this is actual home video footage of & by a real live young couple! That being said, both Katie Featherston & Micah Sloat are wonderfully fresh, authentic and talented to have pulled it off. Well done guys!

From the grainy, bad colour film footage at night to the ouija board that moves on it’s own and then catches on fire – this movie does it all. The ominous moving of plants in the closed living room, the movement of the door and then it getting slammed – fantastic. Katie awakens in the middle of the night to spend several hours standing by the bed staring at Micah while he sleeps – how many of you wouldn’t get a scare to open your eyes and see someone staring at you, even if that someone is your loving partner?

The ending is also very good and effective in scaring the beejesus outta you and you family tree! Scary looking masks, heavy duty monster make  up and special effects are laughed at by this movie. By the end you are stunned, scared and concerned. And begging for more. Gotta watch this one!

Another one of the dvds that had been lying around for a couple of months and which I just watches – Knowing is a sci-fi/drama / thriller that bordered so closely to being something from the makers of The X-Files. Except for the end of the world that we see at the end of the film.

Well, Nicholas Cage stars in the film as John Kostley, as a recently widowed professor of astrophysics at MIT. At the school’s opening up of a time capsule, his son is handed a letter which was written 50 years ago by Lucinda, a girl who heard whispers and wrote a series of seemingly random numbers on the paper. John sees the paper and discovers that the numbers are the dates and geographic coordinates for every major disaster that has happened in the 50 years since Lucinda wrote the letter. Lucinda had accurately predicted each and every one of them.

There are 3 dates that are yet to come but within a few days. A day later a commercial airline crashes near John with many dead or burning to death at the exact coordinates that was in the paper. John tries to contact Lucinda but learns that she is dead and instead meets up with her daughter Diane, who does not believe him at first. After a subway crash that left many dead, Diane is convinced and approaches John. While the two search Lucinda’s home, mysterious strangers in coats come to John’s son Caleb and Diane’s daughter Abby. As John chases them, they disappear in a blinding light. Along with this having noticed that the last date on the paper is not accompanied by coordinates, further clues in Lucinda’s home lead John and Diana to realize that the “33″ listed as the death toll for the final disaster is actually “EE” reversed, which Lucinda meant to represent “Everyone Else.” Meaning the end of everyone.

The worldwide catastrophe that will mean the end of life on the planet is soon found out to be a massive solar flare will soon reach Earth. Diane tells John that the four of them can hide out in underground caves with supplies but John finds out the final message left by Lucinda  – coordinates to her home in the woods! By now both Caleb and Abby can hear whispers and start scribbling numbers. A  scared Diane takes both Caleb and Abby with her toward the caves and stops at a gas station. While she is on the phone, the tall strangers drive off with her car and with the kids inside it. Diane gives chase but dies in a car crash. John leaves for the home in the woods where he finds his son & Abby who are paying with two rabbits. Turns out that the strangers are aliens in human form. They know of the destruction of Earth and have come to take chosen ones with them.

The chosen ones are the humans who hear the whispers and can predict the future. John lets his son and Abby go with the aliens in a spaceship. From space we can see that many such vessels are carrying off possible others who have been given the gift. John goes back to meet his parents & sister where they all gather together and embrace as the solar flare burns the ozone layer and incinerates all life on Earth. The children are deposited on another world in a field that features a giant white tree towards which all the kids run. This signifies a new beginning for the human race.

A Perfect Getaway is a psychological thriller movie released in 2009 and was a minor hit. Based solely on the awesome trailer, I really wanted to see this movie. And I did last evening – and it wasn’t as great as I expected it to be. The film was shot in Puerto Rico and Hawaii, and was released on August 7, 2009 in the US, and on August 12 in the UK and stars Steve Zahn, Timothy Olyphant, Milla Jovovich, Kiele Sanchez, Marley Shelton, and Chris Hemsworth. So what’s the movie about?

• Cydney & Cliff are on honeymoon in Hawaii and spending it by hiking to a remote beach. On the way over there they hear about the gruesome murder of another couple, whose teeth and fingers were cut off after they were killed. They still go on the trip.
• On route they meet Cleo and Cale, a rough looking couple who intimidate them. They manage to insult Cale without meaning to.
• Cliff & Cydney then meet up with another couple Nick & Gina who are vacationing there. They join up to hike to the remeote beach. Nick claims to have titanium plate in his head, a souvenir from his tour of Iraq. He plans to propose to Gina while on the beach but she has no clue.
• It looks like the rough couple are stalking Cliff in an effort to intimidate him. Already looking suspicious, at some point on the island, Kale and Cleo are arrested by the police and are found with a container of pulled teeth in their bag.
• Now you think that the criminals are caught but in a twist to the tale, the timid looking Cliff turns out to be a phycho killer an he shoots Nick while the two of them go canoeing. Nick is stunned but is saved due to the titanium plate in his head – which is what the bullet hit.
• Meanwhile Cydney is cooking and Gina discovers  that the seemingly loving couple aren’t who they say they are. She had idly picked up Cydney’s digital camera and gone through the photos when she realized that the camera actually belonged to the couple who were murdered. She runs to warn Nick and Cydney runs behind her.
• The girls tangle with each other and Cydney managed to stick a knife in Gina’s leg, but the latte pushes the former into the ocean. Cyndey swims back to the beach while Cliff (while hanging onto a cliff) tries to get to Gina. She stabs the knife into his hand and runs away. She meets up with a few people from town who came looking for the canoes that were rented. Cliff confuses them for a while by claiming that Gina is his stoned wife but the people don’t fall for it. Cliff shoots them all dead as Gina runs.
• Meanwhile Nick recovers by this time and catches up with Cliff. He jumps on top of him with a mini axe swinging – it slices Cliff’s hand in two. With the other hand still wounded by the stabbing that Gina inflicted, Cliff is unable to properly pick up a gun and shoot at Nick. Nick gets the upper hand and almost shoots Cliff dead but Gina tells him not to.
• While this is happening, Cydney has flagged down a police chopper and directs them to the scene. She tells them that she has found the killer and that he is planning to kill again. The cops sees the two men and asks which one is the killer. Instead of pointing Nick out and saving her husband Cliff, she tell the cops that Cliff is the killer. The cops see Cliff crawling to pick up a fallen gun and they shoot him dead. Why?
• Turns out that Cliff, whose real name is Rocky, took Cydney out on a date many years ago. She thought that he was a perfect gentleman and just after they made love, he showed her the dead carcass of a neighbour’s dog. He had killed the dog and threatened to kill her if she told anybody. He dragged her into a life of murdering couples and stealing their identities – in  bid to stay immortal, as he claims Cydney saw a chance to get away from that life and that’s why she told the cops that Rocky aka Cliff was the killer.
• And in a sappy ending, Nick, strapped to a stretcher proposes to a weepy Gina while they leave the island in a helicopter. But wait a minute – what the fuck happens to Cydney? That’s a question left unanswered.

Surprise casting; funny man Steve Zahn, who I have always liked, as a psycho killer. The dude is very convincing. And Mila Jovovich as Cydney plays a believable almost ditzy & dumb, woman in love until she shows her true colours. Keile Sanchez, who I have only seen in Married To The Kelleys, is also good. Overall I’d give it a 6 outta 10.

All of you who have heard of this movie may be aware of the history behind it. The story of American President Richard Nixon who resigned from office in leiu of the backlash from the Watergate scandal & you may have heard / seen television presenter / journalist & talk show host David Frost. David Frost is huge part of my childhood, having seen him on numerous tv specials throughout the years I spent growing up in Kuwait. But I wasn’t aware of this series of interviews that the British journalist conducted with Nixon.

The movie is a strong, mostly dialogue driven classy bit of cinema that I shall always remember. So nice to know that such movies are also being made. Here’s why I loved the movie:

• Some crafty casting – Frank Langella, who many have seen as Draculla, Sherlock Holmes and as Skeletor in Masters Of the Universe, did a fantastic job as Nixon. The 70+ year old actor truly did deserve to be nominated for an Oscar.
• And Michael Sheen did a terrific job portraying a playboy, partying and glamorous Frost, who when it came down to it, was also an intense interviewer. I didn’t recognize the Irish actor as the same fella who played ‘Lucian’ the werewolf in the first and third Underworld movies.
• And the supporting staff were wonderful too – Oliver Platt plays an understated supporting role as does Kevin Bacon and Sam Rockwell. I really like Rockwell’s acting in the film.
• Rounding out the cast is the beautiful Rebecca Hall, who plays Caroline Cushing, Frost’s girlfriend who he meets on a plan and who becomes his support & confidant during the trying times that surrounded the interviews.
• The interview sections were some of the best tet-a-tet acting that I have ever seen and is worth watching over and over again. You can cut the tension with a butter knife.

I recently watched 2012 on dvd, a copy that I’d bought a few weeks ago. It’s a movie that ultimately grossed over $769 million worldwide, becoming director Roland Emmerich’s second highest grossing film, behind Independence Day.

Such a big budget & big name movie based on the 2012 phenomenon gets a lot of praise and a lot of criticism as well. The special effects are to be commended and the realism of it is absolutely stupendous. Ofcourse not everyone will like it but I did. Here’s my few view points on this film.

• Disaster & big budget films like this are not usually known for the great acting & the memorable dialogues, but I thought that British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor did a very good job. Firefly fans may remember him as the operative from the movie Serenity.
• What I didn’t like and found to be unbelievable is the “suddenness” of the events. Towards the end yes some time is shown to have passed before the arcs reach the Cape Of Good Hope but the rest of it? Doubtful.
• Jimi Mistry doesn’t sound Indian at all in this film. He sounded more authentic in The Guru.
• Another movie where the American President is shown to be heroic and morally a champion. Really?
• I thought Oliver Platt was also really good in his somewhat anti-hero role as the President’s Chief Of Staff.
• Dialogues can be so corny in these movie. Amanda Peet’s character has divorced from her husband, played by John Cusack. She now has a boyfriend, who lives with her and her kids. During all this, the new lover is killed and the family of four is back together again. At the end of the movie, as the arcs sight land and the survivors gather to watch as they approach it, Cusack hugs Peet from behind, she kisses him and says “Where have you been all my life?” Answer: Waiting by the sidelines while you were fucking some other guy, you whore?”
• Nice to see Stephen McHattie in a big budget movie of this nature, even if his role is minor.
• A Star Trek connection – John Billingsly (Enterprise’s Doctor Phlox) also has a minor role.
• (Stargate Universe‘s Dale Volker) Patrick Gilmore too has a minor role as does veteran actor Patrick Bachau.

There’s one big reason to watch this movie – the acting of Suleka Matthew. Touch Of Pink is a 2004 film directed and written by Ian Iqbal Rashid and takes its name from the Cary Grant movie That Touch of Mink. The film, revolving around Muslims and being gay.

Alim (Jimi Mistry) is a gay young man working in the film industry in London, UK. He originally left Toronto to get away from his conservative family – his mother Nuru (Suleka Mathew), his aunt Dolly (Veena Sood) & his well meaning uncle Hassan (Brian George). He lives a comfortable life in London, sharing an apartment with his British boyfriend Giles (Kristen Holden-Reid). However his life in the closet is about to be turned upside down when his mother decides to pay him a visit, feeling sad that Alim is not around for the upcoming wedding of his cousin & Dolly’s son Khaled (Raoul Bhaneja).

In London Alim pretends that Giles is just his roommate, whom Nuru doesn’t like and sarcastically calls as ‘egg stealer’ when he eats some of the breakfast she had made for her son – even if there is a lot of it left for Alim. She lays on the guilt heavily for Alim and he even pretends that he is going to marry Delia, Giles’ sister to put on a front of being straight. Giles meanwhile wins over Nuru by taking her out on the town and dancing in the evening. When Nuru finds out that Giles & Alim are actually lovers she is upset & humiliated and leaves back for Toronto.

Alim is upset with Giles that he is not taking things seriously while Giles is angry with Alim for insulting his own mother. They break up temporarily and Alim decides to go attend his cousin’s wedding. While back there, we understand that Khaled & Alim had homosexual relations while they were younger, which Alim is not too proud off. Giles relents and comes to Canada to reunite with his love. Seeing the two of them at the party, Nuru decides to welcome Giles into her family and opens up to her relatives about her son being gay and having a non-Muslim & white lover.

One of the highlights of the movie is that to navigate through his complicated life, Alim uses the spirit of Cary Grant (played by Kyle McLachlan) as his confidante and advisor. The witty banter & conversations between Alim & his imaginary friend are well done. As is Suleka’s acting. It’s not a great film but it does have it’s moments and is worth watching.

A movie from my childhood days always brings a smile to my face. Now, this movie, Secret Admirer was released in 1985 but I would have seen it probably around 1988-89. It remains an icon of the 80s directed by David Greenwalt starring C. Thomas Howell, Lori Loughlin, Kelly Preston and Fred Ward. The original music score was composed by Jan Hammer.

The movie is about Michael (Howell) an almost 16 year old high school student who has this big crush for the prom queen & hot babe Debbie (Kelly Preston). He gets an anonymous love letter slid into his locker on the last day of school, which his friends lead him to believe was written by his crush, Debbie. However, it is actually written by Michael’s best friend, the pretty Toni (Lori Loughlin)! Michael writes a letter back and asks Toni to give it to Debbie. Toni opens the letter, which is basically lines from cards, tears it up an writes another letter and gives it to Debbie instead.

Debbie, who is going out with college jock, Steve, falls head over heels for the way the letter is written and wants to meet her admirer. She & Michael meet and they start going out. Now here is the fun & confused part – Michael’s kid brother Jeff (the late Corey Haim), while stealing some money from his brother, reads the letter and places it in his dad’s book. Their mom, Connie finds the letter and assumes that her husband George is having an affair. George, gives his book to his night class teacher, Elizabeth (Debbie’s mom) and only sees the letter when he gets the book back. Now he thinks that Elizabeth has a crush on him.

Debbie, in order to hide the letter Michael wrote to her, puts it in her mom’s bag. Her dad, Lou a cop, finds it and assumes that his wife is having an affair. One thing leads to another and George & Elizabeth go out on a date with Lou spying on them. They call it off when they find Debbie (with a topless scene by the sexy Preston) & Michael making out in the car next to them. Lou goes to Connie and tells her about the affair and they have a brief making out session to spite George & Elizabeth. Confused?

Meanwhile Debbie & Michael hit it off and go on their date and make out. However Michael soon realizes that dating her is very superficial. They try to have sex on his birthday, much to the disappointment of Toni, but call it off when it doesn’t go right. Toni is upset with Michael but doesn’t tell him about her true feelings and is going off on a year’s educational trip on a ship. Michael realizes that he has feelings for Toni and when he matches the two letters together understands that it was Toni who was his secret admirer and not Debbie.

Debbie is upset and breaks it off with Michael. Both of them confront their respective parents, who are busy accusing their partners with the letters, and the confusion is sorted out. Michael goes to beg Toni not to leave and tells her that he knows it was she who wrote the letters all along. He tells her that he loves her and she jumps off the ship and the two kiss. Funny movie and it’s worth watch a few times.

Ever since I saw Aspen Extreme, I was a Paul Gross fan, even before he floored most of the tv watching audiences who saw him as Constable Benton Fraser in Due South. Men In Brooms is a romantic comedy & sports related movie, revolving around the sport of curling, directed by Paul Gross as well as him being the lead actor.

The cast also includes Connor Price, Leslie Nielsen, Peter Outerbridge, Kari Matchett, Molly Parker and Polly Shannon. Members of the rock band The Tragically Hip make a cameo appearance in the film as a competing rink representing Kingston, Ontario, the band’s home city.

The plot is pretty simple: their old coach dies of a heart attack and his last wishes are that his ashes be stored inside a curling rock and that his  estranged former team – Neil Bucyk (James Allodi) is a dissatisfied mortician in a marriage as lifeless as his customers; James Lennox (Peter Outerbridge) is constantly courting trouble, and this time he’s headed for a date with a thug who’s tracking him down in search of payback; and Eddie Strombeck (Jed Rees) can’t impregnate his wife because of his single digit sperm count & skipper Chris Cutter (Gross) who left town – get back together and play for the prestigious Golden Broom championships.

What follows next is fun practicing, coaching by the evergreen Leslie Neilsen, a love relationship blossoming between Cutter & Amy, the recovering alcoholic sister of his former fiance & daughter of his old coach. Some hilarity occurs during the competition stages and ofcourse, we know that Gross and company will win the tournament. But it’s an enjoyable comedy for grownups and the main theme is novel enough to set it aside from all the other sports related movies.

I saw this movie last night after it was advertised for a couple of weeks on HBO. Fracture stars Anthony Hopkins & Ryan Gosling battling it out in a game of wits. Rosamund Pike, Embeth Davidtz & David Strathairn round out the supporting cast of this fine film.

Hopkins plays Ted Crawford, a wealthy & talented Irish aeronautical engineer, who discovers that his wife Jennifer (Embeth Davidtz) is having an affair with police detective Rob Nunally (Billy Burke). Angered, he plots to kill his wife and get away with the murder. It’s a brilliant move! What he does is that he uses the same gun as Nunally and switches them without the latter’s knowledge. He then shoots his wife with Nunally’s gun. At the house, Nunally (who isn’t aware that this is the house of the woman he is seeing) is the only one allowed in to speak with Crawford. When the detective sees that the victim is Jennifer, he rushes to her aid.

Crawford use this moment to switch back the guns. So, Nunally now has the murder weapon and Crawford has his unfired gun. The police are stuck – they have the shooter and a full confession but they have no murder weapon. Or attempted murder weapon – Jennifer is not dead but in a coma. Rising star deputy district attorney William “Willy” Beachum (Ryan Gosling), initially sees this as an open & shut case but is foiled when an initially seemingly uninterested Crawford, serving as his own counsel, instigates Nunally to attack him in open court.

With no evidence to seal the case, the judge is forced to let Crawford go free, especially when the latter says that the confession was coerced out of him by the detective, who was sleeping with his wife. Beachum, who was to join a very lucrative post in a big law firm, is in tatters. He is also unable to stop Crawford pulling the plug on his comatose wife and she dies at the hospital. It is by chance, while his phone & his colleague’s similar cell phone gets switched by accident, that Beachum stumbles onto the plot.

He has the bullet removed from Jennifer’s head and confronts Crawford, tricking him into a full confession. Crawford boasts about the double jeopardy clause, but Beachum reveals that because Jennifer is now dead, Crawford can now be prosecuted for murder, having previously been tried merely for attempted murder. If he had not pulled Jennifer off life support, he could have been protected by the double jeopardy clause. Crawford is arrested by the waiting police.

Quite a few months late but I finally got to watch District 9, the much talked about, praised and discussed film by director Neill Blomkamp and producer Peter Jackson. For those who have not seen it, it’s very realistic shot; a lot of the movie is like a news documentary with some news footage & interviews thrown in. With themes of xenophobia, racism, segregation of sections of society, District 9 is inspired by events that took place in District Six, Cape Town during the apartheid era.

As you may know, a large mother ship approached earth and is stuck hovering over Johannesburgh after a peice of vital equipment drops onto our planet. The arthropod-like aliens are given refuge on Earth and are forced into slum like area called District 9. Humans have racist attitudes towards the aliens and derogatorily refer to them as ‘prawns’.  Sharlto Copely does a fine job as Wikus van der Merve, an MNU employee who is promoted to lead the movement of the aliens to a new area, district 10.

As the movie unfolds, Wikus is exposed to a dark liquid that the aliens use to power their ship. It is also has an adverse effect when some is spilled onto Wikus – it mutates his DNA into that of the ‘prawns’. He is soon treated as a lab experiment, as the MNU scientists discover that Wikus can now operate the alien weapons, which previously no human could do. When they decide to cut him open, Wikus escapes and as a fugitive finds shelter in District 9 and with ‘George’ and his son.

George & Wikus break into MNU and get the liquid fuel. After a tremendous stand off with the soldiers, Wikus let’s George & his son escape into the spaceship. George promises to come back in 3 years and help a mutating Wikus get back to be human again. Soon Wikus’s mutation is complete and he resembles the aliens completely. He makes metal flowers as gifts to his wife who hasn’t set eyes on him since the first signs of mutation. The illegal experiments on the aliens is brought to light and they are successfully moved to District 10.

Will the aliens return? Will they attack? Will George keep his promise and help Wikus? Unanswered questions that this wonderfully acted but dull at times film poses at the end.